The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-06-26
WOMEN AND THEIR WAYS.
How They Walk, and Talk, and Dress-Points
About Furnishing and Fancy Work.
The Tailor Gown and Its wearer.

The Tailor Gown and Its Wearer.
Special to the Indianapolis Journal
NEW YORK, June 25-Ore of the rarest
things in the city is a woman who walk.
The woman who can run hardly exists. The
average woman is possessed of feet and exacts
from them certain amount of practical service.
but the chances are she does not walk Walking
is graceful exercise and the average we'll
dressed woman is awkward. The better dressed
she is-as notions of dress go-the more awk-
wark she becomes To attribute much of the DO
etry of motion to the gentler sex is one of the
politest it is of the most palpaole fctions
of the code of civilized society.
Two young girls passed down leafy avenue
of the park in front Of me this morning. They
were pretty girls. summers. a dminutive speci-
men of the old chappie called them, Ticking off
late dandelion bloom with his cane. and taking
the rosebut out of his mouth as he said SO. He
justified. They summers, as New
York girls, whose efforts in that line are better
directed and more apt to be successful than those
of other girls. wont to be. Bright eyes, flow
ing hair, bewilderment of coiors. audacous
and at the same time perfectly harmonious and
in keeping with the June luxuriance about
them, a swing and jingle of bead fringes and
clanking chatelaines set them off in the New
York girls own high spirited, vivacious style.
going Newport in a week, and the other
was alternately congratulated because her father
was going to take her 3 long yachting voyage
and condoled with because she was likely to get
tennis this summer Yachting and tennis
That sounded like ouu-ofdoor living, and yet
neither of them could walk. The great bulges
of drapery on their backs swayed with every step
from side to side, aggrayating jerky motion
that of the same sort, If not pronounced
as the painful for ward bitches of man on stills
1t seemed to the observer as If. instead of
having any free command of the muscles that
produce a given motion. the whole body
turned perfcrce into locomotive machine that
pivoting somewhere in the chest, brought
side forwardsand then the other with alto
gether effort that was not especially noticeable
in slow sauDter, but became positively dis
tressDg at a quick pace.
The critical anatomist of raiment would have
called them victims of three 1ncubi the tailor
gown, the hustle and beads. The tailor gown,
one corsetere assures me, has reduced the size
of the average New York girls waist two inches
in many years. The tailor gown almost never
weighs less than ten pounds and it runs from
that up to more than twenty. The girl who has
worn it is prepared to put panoply of jet
that will make the delicatey beaded net that
looks SO cool and airy thas you might think
fairy could dance i'll it, weigh nearer forty
pounds. She has grown accustomed to dress
burdens that her lace dresses for the seashore
have steels enough in their bodices, and
lead weights enough in the silk slips under
their skirts TO make them far from the
summerish things they look With the body
muscles strapped down and loose and swaying
hustle mountain tied upon the back, carrying
more weight than would tire hearty man, it is
small wonder woman can't walk She can't
use her body because she has made pack mule
of it. The springing step with some vitality and
rebound in it, that is the true walking gait, is
almost incompatible with her attire.
Women il is to be presumed, suit themselves,
and men, fortunately. not critical, in
deed incapable of judging of woman's dress
her walk dispassionately, and so the present state
of things may be right enough after ell.
ought to be tolerant. When woman is spending
the greater part of her life in studying how to
dress herself it is reasonable to assume that she
knows more about her needs-and conse
auently that to be able to walk is not of
them-thaI the exoteric critic who cynIcally
views results when the cold hearted horsecar
conductor half way down the block bids her
hurry And man is intolerant. a great
jority of masculine humanity having tender
side for every reasonably good Hooking woman,
and being accustomed to the most of their
angelic acquaintance dress walk in a par
ticular fashion, conclude. against the evidence of
their senses, that both dress and walk are grace
full and becoming whfh, before said, all
things considered, is,a Taost fortunate state of
affairs. ELIZA PUTNAM HEAToN.